Posted on 08/14/2007 3:48:40 PM PDT by Dubya
Pentagon weapons testers say the Army’s new European-designed and built light utility helicopter has a couple of serious shortcomings that must be remedied before it can fulfill many assigned missions.
A new report by the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation says the Eurocopter UH-72A Lakota helicopter “is not operationally suitable,” especially in hot weather environments, because its cockpit electronics systems could fail due to inadequate air conditioning.
The Army plans to buy 322 of the helicopters, a slightly modified version of the commercial Eurocopter EC-145, which it selected last year for use by stateside Army and National Guard units for light transport and medical evacuation missions.
The initial aircraft produced under the $2 billion contract have been built in France. American Eurocopter, the Grand Prairie-based arm of Eurocopter and parent company EADS, will build the bulk of the new helicopters at a plant in Columbus, Miss.
The report, based on testing the Army performed with six of the new helicopters in the desert conditions of Fort Irwin, in California, found there was much to like about the UH-72A.
It says the aircraft “is effective in the performance of light utility missions” and that it appears to be reliable and easily maintained, low cost to operate and will be a significant improvement over the aging UH-1H Huey’s and OH-58 Kiowa’s now in operation with Army and National Guard units.
But the aircraft cannot haul the desired loads at high altitude-hot day conditions and is too small or is not organized properly to allow a medical attendant to care for two critically ill patients on stretchers. It also said crew members, patients and passengers would become very uncomfortable due to the tightly sealed, but poorly air conditioned cabin.
The Army wants to use the new helicopters to replace not only those older aircraft, but also to allow it to move its workhorse Sikorsky UH-60 Blackhawk’s to combat units.
A Eurocopter official said the UH-72 does meet all of the specific mandatory requirements laid down by the Army and is discussing ways to address key issues identified in the report.
“We’re working with the Army ...to address the capability of the air conditioning in this aircraft,” said Randy Hutcherson, vice president of rotorcraft for EADS North America and manager of the LUH program.
The Army never specified a requirement that the helicopter be suited to caring for two critically ill patients at the same time, Hutcherson said, something not even required by civil medical evacuation aircraft.
Army officials did not return call seeking comment on the testing office report. Previously they said the UH-72 provided the most capability for the price.
The twin-engine Eurocopter aircraft, which is widely used by commercial medical evacuation services, was chosen by the Army from a competition that also included entries from Bell Helicopter, MD Helicopters and Italy’s AgustaWestland. The Bell and Agusta offerings were larger, more powerful and costlier aircraft.
Bob Cox, 817-390-7723
And in other news today the Pentagon has ordered HumVees to be replaced with revised models of the Renault 10. /sarcasm
Nice.... I guess the Euros want to kill us too?
You get what you pay for.
Ugly little things.
Previously they said the UH-72 provided the most capability for the price.
Even a moron knows that you get what you pay for, I mean what the American tax payers pay for weather it’s good or bad.
Sometimes you get less than what you pay for. More often than not, the military pays the price of a Porsche to get a Volkswagen bug.
Why not just buy blackhawks?
This must be our token purchase from Europe.
On the other hand, an elephant is a mouse designed to Army specs.
And it is afraid of mice.
Well. you take bleed air from the compressor section of the engine to run the air conditioning, which will cool the cabin,
but, that reduces the power of the engines, so the hot day performance is worse.
I call b.s. on this one. Something that would require so much space in the bird is either obviously in the specification, or not in there. Someone is lying bigtime. This is not a simple misunderstanding. I say POLITICS got involved in this bid/award.
I think your on target. It doesn’t seem all that unclear that a helicopter in a war zone would need to fly at altitude to avoid identifcation and hostile fire.
Course we are talking about the Frogs here. Grin...
Eurocopter is a division of EADS, which of course is the parent of Airbus, and Airbus Military, which has been making acquisitions to position itself to compete against Boeing for tanker (and likely other large logistics aircraft) contracts. This has been championed by the likes of John McCain, particularly during his hyper-self-righteous period of anger against Boeing.
Why can’t we buy something made in the United States for once?
Thats what I say too.
They should have taken their medicine and bought Bell 430's. Holds two patients plus a trauma team. American designed, built, and American proven machine.
Paramedic and Flight nurse plus pilot and two patients and needed equipment.
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